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"we need to tune our trust of science down a bit" Science != popular reporting/understanding of science. But the point about some of our understanding being w

• cynicalkane 17y ago
  Science itself isn't at fault, because science isn't really a thing. In this case, it was the institution of medical science that we trusted erroneously. Actually, it's really amazing how many dangerously wrong ideas medicine has come up with over the years.
• jerf 17y ago
  I am not talking about popular reporting of science. I am talking about science. Recently a paper went by on how something like 90% of medical studies are not able to be replicated in follow-up studies. If you really understand science qua science (as opposed to science-as-religion-substitute), you should understand this isn't a minor interesting tidbit to be discarded, this is a dagger to the heart of the field. Other fields seem to be having similar problems. I reiterate, science is still the best we've got and I don't anticipate a replacement. But the evidence strongly suggests that the quality of the real science being done is a lot lower than it may appear at first glance, or what some people would have you believe.
  • jerf 17y ago
    Coincidentally, this just came up: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1199230 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1199230 It is almost exactly what I mean. Unfortunately, if the results are sufficiently bad there's actually no salvaging the science; meta-analysis can improve things but still requires good data to start with.